HUAC H.Q.

The House Un-American Activities Committee occupies ten cluttered, high-ceilinged rooms on the first floor of the Old House Office Building. Only Room 226 has the name of the Committee painted on the frosted glass of its door, but a visitor can quickly sense the mission which sets these rooms apart from the hundreds of other offices on Capitol Hill.

Near the door of 226, which is the Committee's front office, a secretary sits at a desk overflowing with copies of The Worker. Methodically, she circles names with a red pencil. On the walls hang several small landscape paintings. But over a desk at the rear of the room hangs an automobile bumper sticker which reads "BEAT KHRUSHCHEV" in irridescent orange letters.

In the next room four middle-aged secretaries cut out articles from Communist publications and Hearst newspapers. One of them has a stack of Hearst-writer George Sokolsky's columns in a wooden tray. A few Sokolsky articles, neatly clipped, lie flat on the desk and she reads them carefully.

The Committee counsel, eager to dispel the picture of HUAC given by its critics, beams as he shows the secretaries to the visitor. With a chuckle, he asks him, "We're not ogres, now, are we?"

Behind the secretaries there is a smaller room containing HUAC's million-name file of American Communists. The counsel explains that the file can only be opened by the F.B.I. and other "competent researchers." The general public is denied access to its contents. As the visitor enters, a Committee employee, who was looking through a file drawer, quickly closes it. Atop one bank of filing cabinets are placed all the Committee's publications since its inception in 1938. The row extends nearly five feet. The counsel says with pride that this literature contains the heart of HUAC's work. He suggests that the visitor look it over some day.

Another room is filled with neat green boxes holding a wide range of American periodicals, dating back twenty-five years. Ironically, William F. Buckley's National Review and the National Guardian, which the counsel called "fellow-travelling," are kept on the same shelf. Beside the door to the room several color pictures of a baby are taped on the wall. A sheet of paper with feminine handwriting explains his progress.

Through a door across the room, the visitor sees a small storage space with racks holding a complete collection of American Communist Party newspapers since its founding.

Down the hall are the offices of HUAC's investigators. One office has a large wall map of the United States. Red pins in the map show the location of Communist Party headquarters. A large illustrated chart of the American CP hangs in another office. The rather grandmotherly face of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, chairman of the Party, occupies the center of the top row of this chart. She is surrounded by the faces of other Party higher-ups, most of whom look surly.

The next office is piled high with current literature. More than 400,000 pieces of literature have been distributed from this room in the last six months. A clerk hands the visitor a seven-pound sample.

Although it is not strictly part of the HUAC's quarters, the office of Committee chairman Francis E. Walter (D-Pa.) is located close by. Its walls attest to Walter's role in HUAC and his immense power. Pictures of Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy hang behind his desk. A wall-full of framed cartoons--many of them critical--comment on the HUAC. They picture Walter as nearly everything from Smearer of Innocents to gallant knight.

Outside Walter's window the visitor can see workers constructing a huge new House Office Building. A pleased Walter says HUAC will be moving there in a few years.